


Hanging Question Marks

by Karios



Category: White Collar
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e15 Stealing Home, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-03 05:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19457563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: "Tonight, you and I are going to talk.""What do we talk about?""Everything."One possible version of what everything may have covered for Neal and Sara that night.





	Hanging Question Marks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Huntress79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/gifts).



> You mentioned missing moments under your prompt for Neal/Sara, and this episode has one of the best ones for them. I loved getting to imagine what they might have said and done after that fade to black and I hope you will too!
> 
> I decided to start the fic right before Sara shows up at the apartment so a chunk of this fic is from the episode itself.

Spending the last few days with Gordon Taylor had been confusing for Neal, to say the least. Gordon represented as close to an ideal life as one could get being a con artist. A road not taken in human form was thrown in Neal's path just one week to commutation day, and yet.

Even pulling a job with Taylor hadn't shaken Neal's resolve in who he wanted to be. Freedom or no, he'd settled on his life as it was here in New York. He'd only wished he'd known that a few months ago, made a firm decision before it had cost him... 

As if summoned by his thoughts, Sara appeared there in the doorway to his apartment. 

"Sara! This is a surprise."

"It's been that kinda day," she replied, still holding her purse as she made her way into the apartment. "Peter told me about your commutation hearing."

Neal felt caught somehow, even though he hadn't expected her to care much at all. "Oh, I, yeah."

"Congratulations," Sara said sincerely. "You didn't mention it when we..." She stopped short and Neal finished for her.

"Worked together."

"Worked together," she agreed. "I thought it went well."

"Very well." Neal was quick to confirm. "I didn't want you to think it was because I needed you to say nice things about me."

Surprise flickered across Sara's face. "Oh, well, I appreciate that," she said with a smile. "Don't do it again."

"What?"

She answered the question with a question, stepping closer to him. "Neal, what are we doing right now?" 

"Talking?" he guessed.

"Yes. We're talking. We're being open with each other. That is what we need to do. I don't need you to protect me by hiding things from me, all right? Because that's where we got tripped up last time."

"That and a multi-billion dollar U-Boat treasure...explosion," he corrected himself weakly.

Sara laughed, moving past him. "All right," she declared, setting her purse down. "Tonight, you and I are going to talk." She selected a bottle of wine from his collection. "Not about your hearing, but we are gonna talk."

"What do we talk about?"

"Everything." She made her way over to the couch and sat, tucking her legs up under her.

Neal smiled. "Quid pro quo."

"I am an open book," Sara insisted.

"Really?"

"Mmmhmm."

Neal came over, set his glass down, sat. "I think I know where to start."

"Of course you do," she said with a giggle.

"How many other former fiancés do you have?" 

"Okay."

"And do they all practice tai chi?"

"Stop it. It was just the one!" She laughed again.

"Really?"

"It was just the one," she repeated, holding up a finger for emphasis.

"You're sure?"

Satisfied he was done with his joke and her turn could start, she asked, "Is your real name Neal?"

"That is a very long story."

"It sounds like a really—"

Neal tried and failed to interject.

"—good story."

"I would have preferred you started with something a little easier. Do I get a choice?" he asked.

“Nope. Now you have to tell me."

Neal poured himself some wine before answering. "The simplest answer is yes. It's the name my mom gave me."

"But?" Sara prompted.

"But it's not the name I grew up with. In WitSec, I was Danny."

"Danny doesn't suit you."

"Right?" He took a long sip from his glass. "I think it's why aliases come so easily. I started out with one."

"Wait, WitSec? Just how early does your criminal career start?"

"Not quite that far back? Well, I did forge a bus pass in grade school..." For a second, Neal considered segueing into that lighter story, but took another swallow of wine. "I'll circle back to that."

"You'd better. It sounds cute."

Neal waved that off. "I guess. Anyway, we were in WitSec because of my dad."

Sara didn't say anything, didn't press for any of the hows or whys the way he'd expected, just sat there looking at him. Paradoxically, it made it easier to force out his next words.

"He was a cop. A dirty cop," he clarified quickly lest Sara get the wrong idea. "My mom told me he got caught up in a crime, and she just conveniently left out he was the one committing it."

"Neal," she said softly, taking his hand. "That's awful."

"That's not the worst of it," he said. Apparently his mouth had decided to go for broke before his brain could catch up. "She also thought it was best to tell me he died a hero. Let me grow up wanting to be a cop."

To Neal's surprise she didn't poke fun. "I could see it?"

"Really?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. You have a sense of justice. It's a little..."

"Bent?" suggested Neal.

"I was going to say unorthodox, but my point was you care about other people."

"Now you notice," he said, knowing he sounded a little more defensive than he'd meant to be. 

"I still have pretty strong feelings about stealing. About wanting things you didn't earn. My job's based on it. But, meeting Keller, seeing Bryan fall apart, it's clear you don't want to hurt anyone. Half my clients are less ethical."

"Yeah, well, my turn." Neal fixed a smile back in place, and hoped she couldn't or didn't choose to see through it. "How about tiny Sara? Ever find yourself in trouble?"

She laughed again. "This is just another variant on the fiancé question. You want to know how many bad boys came before you," she accused.

"Guilty." He grinned for real at her teasing. "No, really, I want a fun fact."

"Here's one for you. I was a climber: tall bookshelves, trees, fences, you name it."

"Really? I'll have to take you with me base jumping sometime."

"Since when do you go base jumping?" Sara scoffed. "Lots of mountains in your radius I don't know about?"

"I last went a couple of weeks ago, for your information. I had to get that Degas out of Richmond's penthouse and get back down to the street somehow, so Peter could find me where he left me."

"You could have died!" exclaimed Sara. 

"A fate marginally preferable to Peter and Kramer finding that painting and putting Mozzie and I away forever."

“I’m going to hope you don’t mean that.”

“No. Not really. But there are fates worse than death, even if not that one.” 

Sara nodded knowingly. “Yeah, there are. God, how did this get so gloomy?”

“You did ask for my tragic backstory.” Neal snickered.

“We need something more upbeat. I know, tell me about Danny the pint-sized bus pass forger.”

“It’s not even your turn!” Neal protested, though he was just as happy about the change of subject as she was.

“I’ll make sure you get to go twice after this.”

Never one to accept a deal on anyone else's terms, he countered with, “Make it three.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Caffrey. But done. Now, spill.”

“So after everything with my dad...my mom just checked out. Not all at once. But a few bad days, became a few bad weeks, and increasingly she forgot the basics, like taking me to school. And I _liked_ school. I had to do something."

Sara shifted to rest her chin in one hand and nodded encouragingly.

"So first I broke in and adjusted the clocks so they wouldn't notice I was late. Which worked as terribly as you might think. Then I went after school and barricaded some roads so the bus ran past my house."

"Did that work?"

"For a couple of weeks. Until someone caught on, or needed those back for actual road construction. Bought me enough time to make a half-decent city bus pass. They improved with time and practice."

"I didn't expect your first fake document to be so," she paused, he could see her racking her brain for a word to encompass it, "practical."

"In some ways it might have been my first con too. Being a little kid on a full city bus taught me a lot about acting like I belonged there, deflecting questions, occasionally twisting the truth."

"How old were you?"

“Seven, eight." He shrugged. "Old enough for self-reliance, young enough not to realize I shouldn't have to be. And now you owe me four questions."

Sara shook her head. "I walked right into that. Okay." She drew herself up straighter. "Do your worst."

"Oh no, I can save the good questions for when you're not expecting them. For now, do you feel like this conversation might last long enough for me to whip up dessert?"

"Even if it wasn't, your food is definitely worth sticking around for."

They started their second round of questions with chocolate mousse and the handcuffs. They didn't get very far before they were back to his lips on hers, her hands under his shirt, and his fingers tangled in her hair.

Neal had only one question left that mattered to him now: "Feel like spending the night?"

Luckily for him, Sara said, "Yes."

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to ashling for betaing!
> 
> Lesser thanks to Bertrand Russell for the title, cropped from this quotation: In all affairs, it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.


End file.
